Categories
Middle Eastern

Babylon Bakery & Grill – Fairfield Heights NSW Restaurant Review

I’m almost certain I had written something about Babylon Bakery already, but I couldn’t find anything in the drafts or in the scheduled posts, and I couldn’t even find any notes taken from the meal, so I guess I’ll just do it again from memory.

We visited Babylon Bakery after seeing it recommended on social media by someone who I hope wasn’t a paid influencer. We ordered a relatively large amount of food to eat in, and unfortunately had to wait a relatively large amount of time (21 minutes) for our food to arrive.

We had a one kilogram mixed skewer pack ($40) which consisted of chicken tawouk, lamb kofta, as well as lamb meat skewers for a total of eight skewers worth. This also came with some coleslaw consisting of lettuce and tomato, as well as some seasoned onion, garlic and hummus dips, and chilli coated bread.

This was a large dish and extremely good value for only $40 with an overall huge amount of food. The chicken was my favourite, being quite juicy and tender, followed by the lamb kofta. The the chunks of lamb meat were less to my liking with a bit of gaminess to them, and overall a bit less tenderness than the other two options.

We also had a fattoush salad (regular size – $8) although, and I didn’t know this at the time, we probably could have had fattoush instead of coleslaw on our kilogram of mixed skewers. This was fine, it was what fattoush iss.

Unbelievably, we also had a chicken shawarma roll ($10), originally intended to be for the following day, but then I wanted to try some. This was excellent with a large helping of garlic sauce, and quite juicy with the pickles – not dry at all like some that I’ve had, for example, from Shawarma Albeik.

Overall
We ultimately packaged up the remainder of our kilogram of meat and took it home to eat the following day. Overall, the value proposition offered by Babylon Bakery was quite good, however I guess they’re not particularly well set up for dine-in eaters with only two small tables on premises. The majority of their orders were for takeaway, and perhaps if one is intending to dine there, it would be better to just order as takeaway, arrive 20 minutes later and then eat there, because sitting there waiting for twenty minutes was no fun. The food is all served in disposable stuff anyway.

Babylon Bakery & Grill
187 The Boulevarde, Fairfield Heights NSW 2165

Categories
Chinese

Chao Shan Dry Noodle 潮汕干面 – Burwood NSW Restaurant Review

I’ve walked past Chao Shan Dry Noodle 潮汕干面 in Burwood Plaza quite a few times, but have never eaten here before due to a general lack of desire, as well as a general sense of cultural inaccessibility, with a somewhat confusing menu (for an outsider) and a paucity of reports online.

We therefore present the first published English language full length case report of a Western person eating at Chao Shan Dry Noodle 潮汕干面.

I had this dry noodle with pork soup ($14) with an added tea/soy egg for $1. The noodle and the soup was served separately, and indeed available to order separately. Available at the counter are self-served jars of Chinese pickled chilli, and zhejiang vinegar ( visible in the top left hand corner of the photo above.)

The meal came with no instructions, and through a process of trial and error I took alternating mouthfuls of noodle and soup. The noodle was chewy but not overly tasty, with the majority of the scallion oil flavour settling at the bottom. This persisted despite some pretty vigorous mixing on my part.

The soup was a clear soup, with pieces of lean pork meat and lettuce, ladled from giant vats at the back of the restaurant. Though I wanted to enjoy this, there was a faint gamey taste to it, which put me off a bit.

At a point midway during my meal, a stranger came and sat directly opposite me and started chowing down his noodles. We neither spoke nor made eye contact, but we were in quite close proximity that I’m quite confident that others in the West would also see this as unusual behaviour. But of course, Burwood is not part of ‘Western Culture’. The experience of sitting face to face with this guy, though strange, was of net benefit to me as I was able to watch how he ate his meal and adjust my own strategy accordingly. It didn’t make the food much more appealing.

Overall thoughts
Apart from a single comment on reddit, I have presented the only full English-language case report of a meal at Chaoshan Dry Noodle / Chao Shan Delights in Burwood. I did not love my meal and would not return.

Chao Shan Dry Noodle 潮汕干面
Shop 20/42 Railway Parade, Burwood NSW 2134

Categories
Snacks

Daliyuan Pie 达利园·派 巧克力味涂饰蛋糕 – Grocery Review

I truly cannot believe how terrible this is. It is so dry and crumbly, too sweet, similar in quality to Ülker Halley’s (Turkish) variant, and overall inferior to both competing choco pie products from Orion and Lotte.

The worst part was that I had to buy a whole bag of them. 10 for $6, even more expensive than Lotte, and coming close to Orion prices.

The Chinese domestic market simply cannot compete in some regards, which explains why I’ve never seen this in Australia before now, and will never buy it again.

The Koreans simply do it better.

Daliyuan Pie 达利园·派 巧克力味涂饰蛋糕
UPC 6911988007209

Categories
Malaysian

New Kreta Ayer – Ashfield NSW Restaurant Review

We ate at New Kreta Ayer (not to be confused with the Old Kreta Ayer) following a long day engaging in the national pastime, directly after seeing the terrace of a former judo champion who had for some reason decided to fill his detached shower with the remnants of a small tree.

The beef brisket roti ($18.90) was alright, though the beef came a bit lukewarm. The roti, however, was fantastic, flaky, oily, and delicious. I’m a big roti fan, and I’m now wondering if I could potentially save some money by just keeping some frozen roti in my freezer at all times.

A further glamour shot of roti.

The combination laksa ($19.90) was big and flavourful, featuring two large prawns and an assortment of other fish balls and proteins. I don’t think it stood out to me as much as the laksa from Ngoodle (just up the road) did, but it was good nonetheless.

The crispy chicken bites in shrimp paste ($24.90) were as tasty as fried chicken can be expected to be, though the portion size really could’ve bene bigger for $25.

Our last choice was a vegetable dish, because we are adults who take care of ourselves sometimes. We had the FuYu KangKung (wok fried water spinach with fermented bean curd) ($19.90), a green dish that my partner said she had had before with her family, but was completely new to me. Though she enjoyed it, I personally did not like the stringy texture, which required many chewstrokes per mouthful to break down into pieces small enough to swallow. A sense of sliminess, possibly a combination of the vegetable itself and the sauce, made the mouthfeel all the less pleasant. That said, it seems likely this was more of a problem with me personally than the dish or the restaurant itself.

New Kreta Ayer
339 Liverpool Rd, Ashfield NSW 2131

Categories
Australian

Showroom Bar at the Royce Hotel – St Kilda VIC Restaurant Review

I had such a traumatic few days last month in Melbourne doing a work-related quiz that upon my return to Sydney I felt physically unwell looking at the photos of all of the foods that I ate whilst I was down there, let alone thinking about writing reviews for them. The constant thought on my mind was really just what if I had to go back? , and so even though I had nothing else to do with my time, I had to take a little break from writing pegfeeds to try to avoid leading myself down that cognitive spiral. Luckily (and rather unexpectedly) I heard back good news.

The lobby restaurant of the Royce Hotel is where we had our end-of-quiz meal, with a few new friends from Western Sydney. Much more of a celebration of having finished rather than having succeeded, we sat in the upscale accommodations comfortable in the knowledge that our examiners , who were all staying in the hotel proper, would be occupied across the road with the afternoon batch for some hours yet.

I never have mocktails, but since I’ve kind of stopped drinking, the amaretti sour ($18) fit the bill whilst the other colleagues were celebrating with a bottle of champagne. Whilst I know that medically a glass of champagne isn’t going to hurt the transaminases, I’d been eating so terribly in the six months leading up to the exam that I was keen to avoid any ethanol that might compound on the metabolically associated fatty liver disease. The amaretti sour was pretty yummy.

The Moreton bay bug ($55) was very good, an opulent dish for someone who had had only a plain croissant for breakfast for fear of intra-exam emesis. The sauce, a black bean aioli and achiote oil concoction, was extremely creamy, complimented by small cubes of leek, turnip and purple potato. The brussel sprouts were tender, and the bug itself was of course delicious. The price for this dish was not small, but the taste was high, the setting was nice, and it fed me well.

I would recommend the restaurant, not the quiz.

Showroom Bar
The Royce Hotel, 379 St Kilda Rd, Melbourne VIC 3004